Peter Fisk

The Moorland Spirit Company’s story started in one of England’s last wild sanctuaries, and the place where I grew up, in the Coquet Valley, a remote part of Northern England. Up on the wild moors of Northumberland, the whipping winds have an unusual effect on the juniper bushes that grow up above the small village of Hepple, whilst down below a small company is obsessed with a pursuit of a gin to make the perfect dry martini. The only way to capture the wild heart of this juniper, they concluded was to completely rethink how the gin was made. Thus their Triple Technique was born.

And from it, the Hepple “High Fidelity” Gin.

Their journey started where other gins usually end: with a meticulously smooth, one-shot heart cut, like a classic London Dry. Handpicked green juniper from Hepple is then vacuum distilled to draw out the vibrant freshness of the young berries. Then using intense pressures of supercritical extraction, in a system usually reserved for fine perfumes, they distil the pure essence of juniper berries – giving an exquisite depth of flavour. Combining these three distillates creates our “Triple Technique” – and the award-winning Hepple Gin. Wild Juniper, captured fully and faithfully: as alive in the glass as it is in the moorland breeze.

On the nose. There is an immediate fresh scent of green apple, bright grapefruit and spicy juniper. This then opens up to reveal underlying notes of Douglas Fir, and fragrant blackcurrant. On sipping. The initial fresh citrus flavours evolve into unexpected ripe cantaloupe melon, the spicy fragrant juniper continues to coat the palate. There is a luscious sweet mouthfeel, which is both juicy and quenching. The finish. Extremely long and this is where the juniper reveals itself further with flavours alternating between sandalwood and cedar with a notable savoury presence that complements the sweet blackcurrant and liquorice. The sweet juiciness is maintained throughout the finish.

This is how the Gin Foundry captured the tale.

With their names as they it is impossible to introduce the team behind Hepple Gin without sounding at least a little bit like you’re establishing the scenario for a Victorian themed murder mystery. There’s co-founder Valentine Warner and Managing Director (and owner of the Hepple Estate) Walter Riddel, along with the distilling/flavour team, formed of Cairbry Hill, Nick Strangeway and Chris Garden. Who will be found in the library with a candlestick lodged into their windpipe? Let’s play the game and found out.

Hepple is a two-fold gin made in a three-fold way, so there’s quite a bit of unpicking to do. We’ll start with the two fold, and we’ll let Warner kick it off. “Walter and I are very old friends, and we have always felt that there was something in the raw, life-giving wilds of Hepple that we wanted to bottle and share,” he explained. Gin, as a botanically diverse spirit, was always the best option when it came to preserving the bounty of the surrounding land, but using the spirit in such a way meant that its very definition was shifting.

“The gin market was growing strongly,” Warner explained, “but the innovation that we saw there was taking gin away from its traditional focus on juniper. We wanted to bring juniper back to the heart of gin, and we wanted to use novel techniques to show it in its brightest, richest and most complete form.”

So there’s the two-fold: a botanically diverse gin that is unique to the land it grows on, but that also respects the flavour and history of gin and – most importantly – juniper’s place in it. So far, so good.

Now for the three-fold. Which in itself is two-fold (sorry about that…). Such is the importance of juniper to the Hepple Gin operation that there are three varieties trapped within its watery walls. There’s Italian and Balkan juniper, and then – most excitingly of all – a green, young juniper that grows on the Hepple land itself.

There are also three ways of extracting flavour being used to create the end outcome… There’s a copper pot still upon which the ‘core’ gin is created – that which sticks to tradition and creates the foundation upon which Hepple Gin’s more defining characteristics can be built – then there’s a rotary evaporator that reduces the atmospheric pressure and so, is used to cold distil the ingredients (thus preserving them in their raw state), and then, last but not least, is a CO2 Extraction System – also known as the Supercritical machine.

The production, with its three methods and multiple variables on the same ingredients, is ludicrously complicated.

The Co2 machine, brought into play by Hill, is capable of capturing the full scope of juniper’s flavour, by allowing “for the inclusion of some of the oils that do not make it through distillation, but which gave that long, deep resonance of taste that we really wanted,” said Warner.

By some serendipity, as the Hepple Gin team was assembling, Sipsmith’s ex-Head Distiller, Garden, was making a move up North. He’d been with the pioneering brand from the beginning, so his knowledge of small-batch distilling was, at the time, second to very, very few, and he happily passed it on to the rest of the Moorland Spirits team. Dragging in the Supercritical machine may have been Hill’s idea, but it was Garden that gave everyone the confidence to use the tools at their disposal.

Even though it all began one frosty morning in the early months of 2013, a recipe is not just a list of ingredients, but of methodology as well, and with so many variable parts, so many different processes – it is little surprise that Hepple’s took two over two years to create.

Strangeway was responsible for blending, and that process in itself took months. “We had literally thousands of variants,” Warner told us, “but the eureka moment finally came one beautiful evening in July 2015, when we found exactly what we were looking for. By September of 2015, we produced our first proper batch of Hepple Gin.”

Not only did the triple distillation technique add literal layers of complexity to the process, it also means that each batch takes much, much longer to produce each an every time moving forward – than if it was all just going straight in the still.

If your mind boggles at the interlaced complexity of it all, here’s another thing to toss into the mix – The fact that a lot of the ingredients are grown on the Hepple land also meant that they had to wait for the exact right time to harvest each botanical.

So – what botanicals go into the gin, which process do they go thorough and how best to sum up a somewhat convoluted process?

The botanical bill:

Juniper (Italian and Balkan), Amalfi lemon, liquorice, coriander, fennel seeds, orris root and angelica are the ‘core gin’ ingredients, whilst green juniper, blackcurrant (berry and leaf), douglas fir, bog myrtle and lovage make up the local angle. The idea was always to keep juniper “singing clearly and strongly from the core,” so the additional flavours were introduced to compliment, rather than overwhelm the pine. “Juniper has been described as tasting like a cold wind from a mountain,” said Warner. “That was the overall flavour we were chasing.”

The methods:

Italian and Balkan juniper, blackcurrant and blackcurrant leaf, coriander, fennel, liquorice, orris and angelica are all added to the pot still.

Blackcurrant leaf, douglas fir, Amalfi lemon, bog myrtle, lovage and the green juniper are individually distilled on the rotary evaporator.

Last but not least, there’s also a load of  Italian / Bulkan juniper mix that goes through the CO2 extraction method.

After distillation, all ingredients (now distilled into various liquids) are blended, before being mixed with water taken from Hepple’s spring and left to rest for three weeks before bottling.

Good luck doing that process on a Monday morning!

There’s a surprising saline quality to the nose, with green hints of vegetation creeping slowly up the side of the glass. The nose is on the quiet side, though there’s a deliberate hum beneath the surface, as though all of the ingredients were vibrating in tandem, getting ready to belt out a chorus. Nothing is immediately discernible, just that thick, wet, green leafiness.

Tasted neat, it’s a different story. Spring water rushes the tongue, plunging us quickly into ancient memories of bare feet on wet pebbles; of frog hunting through shallow steams. There’s a twang reminiscent of the minerality of coves that you get with oysters but before any sense of the sea comes in – it’s gone. It’s fresh and green, though with a hint of musk about it – something dank, and dark, like moss. The juniper is here first and foremost in its verdant berry format, bringing an earthy green taste to the tongue, which is then (somewhat aggressively) attacked by a coriander spice.

The coriander seed serves to reach through the vegetation and pull the Amalfi lemons into the mix. They shine bright and brief before juniper rallies back ‘round, this time with douglas fir in tow. A crisp, wintry pine settles in on the tongue, making this a near perfect winter drink.

With tonic, the gin retains its vegetal nature, although the lemon has more of a chance to emerge from the shrubbery. It’s so loud that it feels angry – like it’s still shouting, even after everyone else has left the room. While we like it enough in a G&T, we’re moving it on quickly. The savoury nature of this sets a clear path; sure, it’ll obviously shine in something like a Martini, but in a Negroni… in a Negroni it will sing.

Overall, the taste of Hepple has us a touch perplexed. It is so evidently a product that reflects the land that it comes from. It is so clearly an homage to their geography. In this light, the flavour achieves its ambitions with aplomb and delivers a great gin with incredible soul (one in which we have a deep routed affection for incidentally). There’s a sense of wilderness to it and the spirit can be appreciated as something different, yet something discernibly ginny too.

Looking in, it’s obviously so much harder to make gin the way they have. It is so much harder to keep it consistent. It takes so much longer per batch too. It’s conceptually and intellectually fascinating to hear the process and that enriches the brand proposition greatly. We admire the endeavour behind Hepple Gin and have been advocating for others to discover it because of their process. But – and this is a big but – with such a complex process, such detail being employed to extract each and every flavour, in our opinion the finesse just isn’t quite there. It’s good gin but given its process is easily up there in the top 5 most complicated gins to make in the world –  we’re genuinely unsure that on flavour alone this massive additional workload is equal to an equivalently clear benefit to the drinker… Thus why we are a little perplexed.

Not that it matters, anyway. They are happy to do their wizardery and we drinkers get a tasty gin and aren’t paying through the nose for the privilege. Despite there being significantly more craft in the making than with many gins (be it justified or unnecessary), at £35 Hepple’s price is in the middle of the pack.

It is impossible, in a world of beautiful branding, to not judge a gin by its bottle. Happily (heppily), Hepple Gin, comes up trumps. The label work is intricate and textured, with silver foiling and detailed sketches of the Hepple-grown botanicals working their way around the label. Each bottle comes in a similarly decorated box, resulting in an overall package that feels gift-worthy.

This is one you’d display with pride, and – actually – it’s one that’d stay on your gin shelf awhile. Hepple Gin, despite its steer towards classicism, is not an everyday sipper, it’s what you reach for when you’re after something with that certain je ne sais quoi.

Flavour and branding aside, we’d have always been pretty duty bound, as out and out Gin geeks, to worship at the altar of the Moorland Spirit Co for their work in juniper conservationism. The Hepple Estate (and Hepple Gin with it) is in the midst of a propagation programme, in which it plants hundreds and hundreds of juniper seedlings both on the estate and on the heather moors surrounding the distillery. Nature is nurture to this team, and it seeps into every single decision they’ve made since they started on this gin making journey.

Warner explains it all quite perfectly: “Our ethos is to tune in to the slow heartbeat of the natural world, and work lightly alongside it. When we harvest, we try to ensure that we leave our wild business partners stronger. To the outside world, our work in the distillery is invisible, odourless and quiet (unless our distiller is ‘dealing’ with our somewhat temperamental Supercritical column!).

“And when our spirit leaves the distillery, we hope it contains something of the true life of the place that it was born from. It is not just that we feel responsible for the land we work in, we feel that the healthier it is, the better products we can make. What goes around, comes around.”

And there you have it. When you taste Hepple Gin, it’s as though you are ringing the land for all its worth and drinking the goods. It is a truly unique take on both Gin and juniper, but every step the brand makes is taken with great care.

Chinese company CRRC Corporation has just launched a self-driving train that runs on virtual tracks – and it just officially hit the streets of Zhuzhou in China‘s Hunan Province. The Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART) could ease emissions and traffic for a fraction of the cost of building a subway or streetcar system. The 100 percent electric train can transport as many as 300 passengers in three carriages through cities at speeds of 43 miles per hour.

No traditional train tracks are necessary for the ART, which runs on dotted lines painted on streets, aided by sensors. The trackless train has been described as a hybrid between a bus and tram, and it’s 100 percent powered by electricity. Channel NewsAsia reported the ART could help speed up public transportation in Zhuzhou before spreading to other cities in China.

The train can reportedly run for over 15 miles after charging for 10 minutes. A few outlets say the ART has lithium titanate batteries and charges via a flash charging facility. The ART is more than 103 feet long, and instead of steel wheels it has rubber tires. A twin-head system allows the train to travel without ever making a U-turn. The trackless train’s lifespan is reportedly around 25 years.

People’s Daily Online reports that the ART is less expensive than the typical subway, which in China costs between 400 million to 700 million yuan, or around $60.1 million to $105.3 million, per kilometer. Compared against electric streetcars, which run around 150 million to 200 million yuan, or around $22.5 million to $30 million, per kilometer, the ART “is only about one-fifth the investment.”

Arup’s Future of Rail 2050

In a future where 75% of people live in cities, the world’s population stands at 9.5 billion and there are advances in technology that can only be dreamed about today, the Future of Rail 2050 takes a user’s perspective and explores how rail travel might change for passengers and freight.

• What are the megatrends that will influence the way people live, work, travel and consume information in the future?
• How will infrastructure and rail systems cope with the rising demand for passenger and freight capacity?
• How will rail fare in a world experiencing an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events?

In the past, we have witnessed rail’s power to stimulate and drive economic growth. In some parts of the world it’s seen as essential for economic diversification and supporting policy, and can be a catalyst for regeneration.

More on the future of rail … travel, mobility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbkvtp5RWuA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQwnT1jqxw8

 

Today I’m in Redmond, Microsoft Campus, exploring the future of business.

Not the Microsoft business, but how we can harness the incredible power of new technologies to reinvent the future of every business. This didn’t used to be Microsoft’s game, having started with a more consumer vision and a computer on every desk and in every home.

Today, now rising like a phoenix in a new world of digital technologies, Satya Nadella is taking Microsoft in new directions, and most significantly, to be the enabler of business potential, to help companies to achieve the impossible, to transform themselves and grow in new ways.

My role is to help Microsoft use my “Gamechanger” methodology in developing their corporate relationships, engaging with business leaders not just CTOs in exploring the future, developing new strategies and business models, to leap forwards in new ways with the help of technologies like cloud, big data, blockchain, robotics, and most significantly AI.

At dinner we sat back to reflect on a day of intense idea generation and development, how to redeploy the capabilities of such a large organisation to be the enabler of business futures, rather than just selling software, as Satya says “to enable other companies to be cool”.

Next to me at dinner was Peter Hinnsen. I’ve followed Peter for quite some years, so it was good to meet at last. He leads Nexxworks, based in Gent, working alongside my friend Steve van Bellegham, and his written some great books, including The Day after Tomorrow. What a great name, sounding more like a James Bond playbook than another guide to innovation.

He’s spent the day making a movie with Roy Sharples and his communications team. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MAyvPyogAU

Just think about those carefully scripted words. Each one matters:

Do you feel that the world around you is changing faster than ever before, and the rate of change is actually accelerating? Do you believe that the number of ‘unknown unknowns’ is increasing? You’re not wrong. The pace of change is exponential, and large organizations struggle to spot new and radical ideas quickly, unable to move fast enough to develop their potential.

In the 20th century size was power. Today, in the Age of Urgency, being ‘big’ seems to be a disadvantage. Success means focusing not just on tomorrow, but on what the day after tomorrow will bring. We have arrived at a moment when a cocktail of new technologies is advancing the speed of change. It’s a ‘Wright brothers moment’, when key innovations can trigger a cascade of changes that transforms the world. These technologies are the engines of our future. How do we accelerate our day after tomorrow thinking to survive and thrive in times of radical innovation?

In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, when new ideas, technologies, and business models can suddenly change everything, concentrating on the ‘Day After Tomorrow’ isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. This is the age of urgency and innovation, fueled by technology. You have to be prepared. You have to reinvent yourself. There are so many tools, ideas, platforms, and people just waiting to be connected. If you are willing to learn, un-learn, and take radical new directions, you’ll find your Day After Tomorrow.

The global railway tech market is expected to reach an annual value of 185 billion Euro.

Railways are often thought to see little change, yet the rail industry has always been a frontier in technology advances and mobility. With the digitalization, however, change in the industry has moved up a gear. Emerging startups bring new possibilities to the table; possibilities that shorten the timeline of innovation thus shaking up the entire industry. The global market volume for railway technology is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2.6% to reach an average annual value of 185 billion Euros between 2019 and 2021. Startups and their technologies dramatically contribute to this process as they are the forerunner of innovation. StartUs Insights analyzed 500+ companies and their innovations, and this is what they found:

Automatic Train Control (ATC)

Automatic train operation entails trains loaded with sensors, GPS data, cameras, and computer systems that have enormous potential to become the most efficient means of transportation in the near future. Though these trains are still linked to the control room, signals from GPS satellites accompanied with the data collected from sensors and cameras help trains process data in real-time, allowing them to make decisions according to various scenarios. ATC will, therefore, enable trains to understand and maneuver around obstacles as well as avoid any possibility of collision.

Israeli RailVision develops Automated Early Warning System (AEWS). This system provides an alarm for any suspicious interfering object with a preliminary classification of any object nature. Presented to the driver as a visual image on the board monitor, this information will be used for additional exploration of the obstacle ahead.

Internet of Trains

The Internet of Things (IoT) already led to various improvements in the railroad industry among which are smart ticketing, rail analytics, dynamic route scheduling as well as train and capacity planning. The application for the Internet of Trains, however, goes much further. It enables rolling stocks, signals, rails, and stations to work cooperatively through the use of intelligent onboard devices. Monitors that are connected to cloud-based applications capture and storage vital data in real-time. As a result, operators are skilled to analyze this information and optimize schedules as well as passenger comfort, to name only two application areas.

Perpetuum improves the efficiency, safety, and quality of fleet management and services through wireless condition monitoring. The startup directly delivers data on assets to improve end-user experience and plan ahead to make rolling stock available to meet customer demands, maximising the overall safety and efficiency.

Predictive Maintenance

Real-time information gathering and monitoring lead to cost reduction as well as improved efficiency and safety, which are only a few reasons predictive maintenance is implemented increasingly throughout the rail industry. Sensors along with monitoring software provide information of bearings, wheels, and bogies. The continuous inspection and diagnosis support operators in intervening quickly to patch up or replace equipment. What is more, operators can not only react to malfunctions but also anticipate potential failure and act before it occurs. Minimising interruption, promoting safety and avoiding costly delays are all benefits that come with predictive maintenance.

The software developed by Dutch Semiotic Labs predicts technical failures. The startup’s solution supplies instructions in the form of algorithms to convert data into information about when and why a system fails. Using this information, operators are able to take to prevent or to solve problems.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence acts as an enabler for many innovations in the rail industry, such as the development of robotics, which in the near future will perform all sorts of maintenance and repair works on railways. Moreover, AI technology is used to develop fully autonomous systems applicable to build autonomous trains along with smart infrastructure components allowing for interconnected trains capable of communicating with each other. Other use cases for AI in the rail industry are intelligent language processing chatbots and the establishment of a connected system that notifies the train where it has to stop based on the customer’s ticket purchase.

Neuron soundware works with artificial intelligence to detect malfunctioning machines using audio signals. The pre-processing of the input data via a complex physical sensor model allows the neural network to recognize and identify important features with high confidence. The Czech company focuses on the early detection of mechanical malfunctions and offers predictive maintenance, real-time mechanical issue detection, and remote equipment diagnosis.

Smart Sensors

Next-Generation trains today are already fitted with hundreds of sensors, allowing engineers to remotely monitor the health of trains without the need to pull them off service. Now, smart sensors are used to decrease failure rate and enhance the reliability of trains, tracks, and signals. Moreover, these sensors present actionable data that predicts the failure of heating or A/C as well as damage to overhead lines and generates alerts about this equipment’s need for treatment.

Italian IVM develops monitoring systems based on systems of integrated sensors. The startup has vast experience in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) technology accelerometer sensors; hardware and software design as well as the implementation of low-power wireless networks for acquisition systems of accelerometric signals; and the extraction of information-diagnostic content from the data acquired by the monitoring systems through the use of specific processing algorithms.

Big Data

In railway operations and maintenance (O&M), big data plays a significant role. Its use equips companies with the necessary data to perform predictive analytics thus pave the way for advanced analysis and better decision making. The employment of advanced data analysis tools leads to critically improved performance and safety measures in railway systems while it also enhances the data-driven railway transportation system design, planning, operation, and management.

One example for a startup supporting companies in this regard is Delphisonic. The Turkish company supplies big data analytics equipment to carry out measurement and real-time condition monitoring tasks efficiently and securely. The solution, called Real-Time Railway Condition Monitoring, remotely monitors facilities in real-time and detects abnormalities which operators can immediately handle.

Cloud Computing

As we have already established, today’s trains run on a number of applications that all generate a vast amount of data. The storage of this data along with the accurate presentation analysis of it is a challenge to the rail industry. Cloud-based technology grants the storage of data collected in real-time while simultaneously providing absolute accessibility and saving substantial cost. Furthermore, cloud services can easily connect to other software for the analysis of collected data and provide operators with all necessary information to make a decision.

Nexiot develops cloud solutions for smart freight rail sensors. The Swiss startup’s servers and databases provide a secure undistributed repository for rapid access and big data analytics. Their cloud infrastructure is tailor-made and provides all things required to connect assets, including device management tools to Nexiot’s smart sensor as well as other IP based third-party devices through standard interfaces.

Drones

Drone technology is expected to have a significant impact on the rail industry as they are used for infrastructure monitoring, capable of collecting detailed data in remote and difficult to access areas. Making use of drones significantly reduces the risk, time, and cost of accessing these areas with the workforce. Furthermore, the gathered data such as visual, thermal, and multispectral data, allow for intelligent management thus increasing the resilience and lifespan of an asset.

RailPod’s aim is to make global rail infrastructure safer and more cost effective to maintain, operate and monitor through the use of automated ‘inspection’ drones. The startup’s drones increase the frequency and quality of day-to-day railroad track inspections through advanced sensing technologies and data as a service (DaaS).

Biometric Ticketing

Biometric ticketing includes facial and fingerprint scans, voice verification, retina, and vein scans, among other possibilities. It is expected that passengers soon will pay using their fingerprint or eye scan. The technology uses infrared lights flashing at a rapid pace to help a camera secure the shape, texture, and orientation of a body part in immense detail. Biometric ticketing is believed to solve the overcrowding issues train stations across Europe face on a daily basis as the recognition technology can end railway ticket barriers and the associated rush-hour queues.

Customer Clever strengthens the development of facial recognition technology. The UK-based startup’s solution is smart enough to recognize people who are wearing glasses and cannot be tricked by a photograph, owing to its 3D scanning capabilities. The startup also claims their system is capable of telling apart identical twins.

A year ago we asked 50 business thinkers to write an open letter to the world’s CEOs.

What are the most important issues which business leaders should be addressing? What are the best new ideas they should embrace? If you could distill all the wisdom of each business guru into one letter, what would it be?

As a result, Thinkers50 published a new book, “Dear CEO” … We launched it as the European Business Forum 2017, held in Odense, a remarkable event that brings together the top business leaders from across Europe, with the best brains in business schools and beyond.

This year’s European Business Forum 2018 focuses on “Making Better Choices” includes the world’s #1 ranked business thinker in the line up. I will be hosting it again, and I am particularly looking forward to Roger Martin delivering the European Business Lecture.

Here is Roger Martin’s open letter to the world’s business leaders:

Dear CEO,

The most pressing challenge facing the CEOs of today’s corporation is incursion into corporate decision making of data analytics, commonly referred to using the fashionable moniker ‘Big Data.’

The state of play is that data analytics is considered fully above reproach: something that modern CEOs simply must embrace. If a CEO doesn’t show unqualified reverence for data analytics, it is assumed that the CEO is a Neanderthal and/or Luddite.

What has changed is that data analytics has migrated from the fringes of CEO life to the very epicenter. It is now the hottest thing in business.

CEOs are increasingly faced with an endless string of well-meaning but unreflective data analytics enthusiasts telling them that the ‘data prove that X is true’ or the ‘correct decision based on the data analytics is to do Y.’

The absolutely dominant prevailing wisdom is that CEOs should thank the messenger profusely and affirm that the decision based on data analytics is right. Instead, CEOs should instead ask the messenger the series of the following five questions:

1. Question: From what era does all data in the world come?
   Answer: From the past. There is no data about the future – yet.
2. Question: What is the full extent of what data analytics tell us?
   Answer: What has been operative in the past based on how the world has worked in the past.
3. Question: What is our implicit assumption each and every time we use data analytics to decide what to do going forward?
   Answer: We implicitly assume that the future will be a direct extrapolation of the past. It will either identical to the past or an extrapolation of the observed past trend into the future.
4. Question: What is the probability of making choices to create a future that is different from the past using data analytics?
   Answer: Zero. Data analytics has zero ability to chart out a course that is anything other than an extrapolation of the past into the future.
5. Question: What is the probability that making a choice about the future based on data analytics will turn out badly?
   Answer: High. Last time I checked, frequently the future turns out to be unexpectedly different from the past – annoyingly so, in fact.

The strong likelihood is that the big data enthusiast will not be able to answer any of the five questions, be baffled by the nature of the questions, and declare the CEO to be ‘anti-analytics.’ But by asking the questions and insisting on answers that demonstrate that data analytics are appropriate for the situation in question – and data analytics is appropriate when the future is likely to mirror the past – the CEO will be saving their companies from the modern day vandals.

Instead, CEOs need to use the only methodology that has ever been useful in making decisions about the future: first, imagine possibilities and second, pick the one for which the most compelling argument can be made.  

In deciding which is backed by the most compelling argument, CEOs should indeed take into account all data that can be crunched. But in addition, CEOs should also use imagination, judgment, and experience of numerous data points from the past that the data analysts wouldn’t consider ‘objective data’ to decide in what way to shape the future – like all the great CEOs in the history of business have done.

In doing so, CEOs will have to accept widespread ridicule in their organizations among the legion of big data enthusiasts, who will say that their CEO lacks rigor and makes decisions on ‘gut feel’ and is ‘old school. But these enthusiasts are likely to be blind and to have never asked questions concerning the logical limits of their methodology.

So CEOs need to stand strong and make decisions that can create a better future for their organization and for humanity.

Sincerely,

Roger L. Martin

• Find out what happened at the European Business Forum 2017 here
• Read all 50 letters to business leaders in the Thinkers50 Dear CEO book here
• Explore the agenda and buy tickets for this year’s European Business Forum 2018: here

• You can buy the Thinkers50 Dear CEO book here
• You can buy tickets for the European Business Forum 2018 here

Predicting the future is not easy, but it is fun. It liberates our minds to think beyond current paradigms, to envision new possibilities, and maybe subconsciously leap over many of the practical barriers we see in reality.

However such predictions can be useful for investors and business leaders, since failing to adapt to changing industry paradigms can completely decimate a business venture, turning it into the next Blockbuster or Kodak.

The infographic below from Futurism brings together some of the most interesting predictions about the future, from trusted sources such as Scientific American and The National Academy of Sciences.

The convergence of robotics, artificial intelligence, and increasing levels of automation are future certainties, its just we don’t know what form they will take and when.

Within this decade we will be able to control machines based on eye movements, while ingesting nano-sized robots to repair injuries from within our bodies. The next wave of AI will emerge rapidly: by 2036, predictive AI will be able to predict the near-future with impressive precision. Elections, weather, geopolitical events, and other dynamic systems will be analyzed in real-time using thousands or millions of data streams. Further ahead, human brains and machines will be continue to become closer to interfacing directly, creating all kinds of possibilities.

Energy is set to see rapid innovation, both to clean sources and beyond. The future of battery technology will include carbon-breathing batteries that turn CO2 into generate electricity, as well as diamond-based “nuclear batteries” that run off of nuclear waste. Meanwhile, solar power will be even cheaper as cells operate at near 100% efficiency, and commercial fusion power will be available by 2044. Climate change will also be tackled by interesting techniques, such as geoengineering with calcite aerosols, and carbon sequestration.

It was getting late in Tomato Town. The storm was closing in, and meteors pelted the ground. Gizzard Lizard had made his way there after plundering the sparsely populated barns and domiciles of Anarchy Acres, then by avoiding the Wailing Woods and keeping the storm just off to his left. He spied an enemy combatant on high ground, who appeared to have a sniper’s rifle.

In a hollow below the sniper’s perch was an abandoned pizzeria, with a giant rotating sign in the shape of a tomato. Gizzard Lizard, who had quickly built himself a redoubt of salvaged beams, said, “I think I’m going to attack. That’s one of my main issues: I need to start being more aggressive.” He ran out into the open, pausing before a thick shrub. “This is actually a really good bush. I couldbush-camp. But naw, that’s what noobs do.”

“The craze for the third-person shooter game has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis, and eating Tide Pods” says the New Yorker magazine.

“Fortnite: Battle Royale” is a 100-person fight to the death set in a colorful, surreal world. It’s a third-person shooter where you only have one life to live. If you survive, you win.

Forbes took a look at the business model behind Fortnite. “As a free-to-play game, Fortnite has to make its truckloads of cash somehow. The biggest tool developer Epic Games has in its arsenal is the battle pass, a combination of traditional and free-to-play game mechanics. The battle pass is a big collection of skins, emotes, gliders, pickaxes and other cosmetic rewards, but you don’t get them all when you pay the initial purchase price. You have to level it up by completing in-game challenges in order to get everything it has to offer.”

Each battle pass is tied to an in-game season, and those seasons last 10 weeks. So when you buy a battle pass, you have until the end of the season to unlock everything it has to offer. You can buy a basic version for approximately $10, or spend approximately $25 to get a version with 25/100 tiers unlocked. Those prices are an estimate because you also might have some of the game’s premium currency lying around from last season’s battle pass.

The battle pass doesn’t just give you access to cosmetics it also gives you challenges with which to structure your play. Every week you get a set of challenges that you can complete to earn battle pass tiers and new cosmetics: these range from eliminating opponents in a particular location to following simple treasure maps. They’re fun, and you can’t do them without the battle pass.

The FT reflects that whilst Fortnite may be about killing everyone else, but it is also about teamwork, dressing up and victory dances — especially the dancing. Its developers, US company Epic Games (who has Tencent as its major investor), drew inspiration for the game’s celebratory, pre-programmed “emotes” from online memes and “vintage” television shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Scrubs. Now, Fortnite dances such as the Floss are showing up on YouTube and in football players’ goal celebrations.

Part of Epic’s success may be due to the fact it is based in Cary, North Carolina, rather than Silicon Valley. The town of 160,000 was previously best known for its Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival. While the big tech giants stumbled around seeking the next big thing after the smartphone, including VR headsets and “augmented reality” glasses, Epic stole a march. Fortnite’s sudden rise is rattling much larger games companies. Executives at Electronic Arts, creators of the Fifa football simulators and Battlefield shooters, protested on a recent earnings call that they had not seen a “giant impact” from players switching to Fortnite. Still, the impact was apparently big enough for EA to add Epic to its list of top competitors in this week’s annual report. Activision Blizzard, the US’ largest games publisher, has said it plans to incorporate the battle royale format into existing games including Call of Duty.

Epic is trying to stay ahead of the copycats. This week, it pledged to create a $100m “prize pot” for competitive Fortnite matches, dwarfing prizes handed out at existing esports tournaments. Fortnite has already become a spectator sport, breaking records on streaming sites including YouTube and Twitch, which specialises in gaming. The pool of potential players has never been larger: more than 2bn people carry a smartphone and 1.5bn people regularly tune in to YouTube. This shift has been building quietly for years. Amazon paid $1bn for Twitch in 2014 and some of YouTube’s most popular stars play and talk about video games. Fortnite’s fans include rapper Drake, and it has minted new celebrities such as the pink-haired star player Ninja.

Fortune says that Fortnite is even being namechecked by investors. “The business world loves a good buzzword. Witness the number of big companies that have started talking about Bitcoin, ICOs, and all things crypto. But now there seems to be a term buzzing even louder than Bitcoin: Fortnite.”

Corporate executives discussing their financial performance on their quarterly earnings calls used “Fortnite” a total of 54 times during the past earnings season, according to an analysis by business news site MarketWatch of transcripts collected by FactSet. That topped the 45 times executives mentioned “Bitcoin” or other cryptocurrencies in those calls.

Leadership matters more than ever in today’s frantic and fantastic markets. More change in the next decade than the last 250 years. More uncertainty, yet also more possibilities than ever before. We need to make sense of the world, find confidence in the craziness, make better choices about where to go, and harness the collective ideas and talents of our people and partners more than ever before.

In fact we quite possibly need a new approach to leadership, to win in this incredible world.

The problem with most leaders is that they got to where they are today, by thriving on the old models of success. Models fit for stable and predictable markets, discrete and well structured organisations, where people trusted and respected hierarchy, where choices were limited, and progress was largely incremental. None of that works in today’s world.

The problem is that most leadership models haven’t kept pace with fast-changing business.

Of course we hear a lot of “stuff” about leadership: Creating vision, inspiring followers, nurturing talent … being authentic, humble, and open … building human capital, emotional agility, relational equity … ambidextrous, empowering, collective … and on. Every business school is packed with self-proclaimed leadership gurus, bookstores are crammed with leadership books, and we lap it all up.

Yet most leadership thinking hasn’t moved on in the last 30 years. Back then, Tom Peters certainly captured our interest with his ranting “In Search of Excellence”. Similarly Jim Collins inspired us, taking us to a new level (Level 5) of leadership, or from “Good to Great”. But since then, its largely been derivative thinking. And surprisingly inwards … about the leader’s self, and their organisation – rather than how they can shape the future.

The old leadership mindset was created to optimise the status quo. It was designed for steady-state markets, and structured organisations. Whilst we have moved from that old hierarchy of command and control, most leaders are focused on sustaining rather than creating. Most change is still an internal program to drive improvement or efficiency. It is adaptive, but not proactive. It is not responsive to the relentless change of today’s outside world. It doesn’t harness the new power of connectedness, social networks and business ecosystems. And it cares much more about those short-term improvements, than creating a better future.

Leadership should be about amplifying the potential of your ideas, of your people, and of your organisation. It is about you, and others, together. It’s not just about where you are, and what you need to do. It’s more about where you are going, and why that matters.

Leaders create a better future, they move us forwards, they inspire greatness, they enable new possibilities. They don’t just talk about change, they are the change. They make sense of the future. They make smarter choices. Meeting expectations is not enough. Making money is not enough. Incremental improvements are wasted effort. Being the mainstream is to become mediocre. Leaders need to look further ahead, to engage people more actively and emotionally, to inspire new ideas and actions, to challenge the old and create the new. Leaders should give us hope, confidence, and ability … to be bolder and braver … to together reach for the stars.

It’s time for a new leadership mindset, to win in a new business world.

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This week, I’m delighted to be launching the new flagship executive program of IE Business School, called the Global Advanced Management Program (Global AMP). It’s a 4 week global program, for the next generation of business leaders, those people about to step up to the C-suite. Rather than a load of abstract theory, this is leadership set in the context of today – an incredible, fast-changing world.

As the Global AMP’s Academic Director, my job is to create the ultimate leadership experience for the winning leaders of tomorrow. To do this, I have scoured the world for the best existing and new ideas, but also the real things that work in practice, for established leaders, and those on the up. What can we learn from Jeff Bozos and Jack Ma, but equally from other areas like sports, politics, culture and society?

We’ve brought together the best ideas, and also a fantastic network of faculty, from then world’s leading business schools, but also leaders from start-ups and corporate giants. We’ll be deep diving into real-time case studies – such as EcoAlf, the sustainable fashion brand, or Credit Suisse, one of the world’s leading investment banks. And each participant will develop a blueprint for their future business.

We will explore the most useful leadership concepts and skills today, but also the best new approaches to business. Because the two are inseparable. From the megatrends driving future progress, to the ability shape markets and reengage customers, innovating far beyond products and services, and rethinking organisations and strategies to win in a digital-physical continuum, that also has huge inherent paradoxes.

So here are some stimulating minds on leadership to get you thinking:

Marshall Goldsmith, often quoted as the world’s top leadership coach, says “what got you here, won’t get you there”. He sees leadership as a contact sport:

Elon Musk is the entrepreneur who now finds himself leading a huge organisation. He’s actually a very humble, hands-on, hard-working guy – but with incredible dreams, passion and positivity:

Jim Collins, famous for taking us from “Good to Great” gets straight to the point – leadership is not personality. The real question, he says, is why are you in it?

Mary Barra is the first CEO in the automotive industry. She has been tested like never, with declining markets, new competitors, bankruptcy and crisis. But then she rose up to help GM grow again:

Jack Ma went from earning $1000 a year teaching English, to creating Alibaba worth $500 billion. He is in inspiring, charismatic and visionary. What are his secrets?

Robin Sharma explores Leadership 2.0, because he also argues for a new style of leadership in today’s world … One of Robin’s suggestions is get up early, and his next book is called The 5 AM Club

Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, believes that leaders need to be distinctive. Whilst they need a awareness of the whole business, they also need a skill. She offers her 5Cs for leadership:

Simon Sinek starts with followership. How? Well his book “Start with Why” is one good answer, which seems obvious, although most of us like to start with what. More recently he wrote “Why Leaders Eat Last”:

Hal Gregersen talks about how to see yourself and the world differently by asking different questions. This is perhaps the biggest insight I gained … its not having the answers, its asking better questions:

Roselinde Torres describes 25 years observing truly great leaders at work, and shares the three simple but crucial questions … and why most leadership development programs don’t work:

Pep Guardiola is one of the world’s most successful soccer managers – managing Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City to incredible success in their respective leagues and competitions:

Kobe Bryant is a basketball legend, playing his entire 20 year career with the LA Lakers. This video profiles his growth as a leader on the playing field, and his importance to the team:

Steve Jobs on leadership, talking about the simplicity of working in a start-up, and why large organisations need to learn the same traits of focus and teamwork, trust and collaboration:

Suli Breaks is one the world’s leading spoken word poets who captivates audiences with his phenomenal wordplay. He is surprising, and inspiring. Here he is closing TEDx at the Houses of Parliament:

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